I have been talking about how the information Google provides
makes obtaining news and comparison shopping easy. And that very
fact is scaring a lot of people.

There is the automobile industry. I have dealt with some car
dealers who have really jerked me around before I knew better.
You know the sort of thing. You haggle with the salesman and
finally get to a price. Then he says he has to get it approved
by his boss. As if he does not already know what price the
dealership will accept for the car. But his boss says he cannot
let the car go so "cheaply." So you compromise once with the
salesman and again with the boss. And even then they feel they
have to play with you to squeeze more out of you.

Compare that system to seeing the price on the web, take it or
leave it. But they are competing with a dozen other dealers.
They can inflate the price if they want; they just will not get
the sale. You could have gone to twenty dealers before the
Internet and you would have gotten a good price, but you did not
want to spend the time. The Internet can make that all a lot
easier. Getting data that the dealers all want you to have is no
longer an impossible task.

The fact is that while Google makes no products you can hold in
your hand, there is very little in the way of providing
information on the Internet that Google is not eyeing as a
possible business. They are providing users with incredible
varieties of information and the only payment they are demanding
in return currently is that they can put advertising on the pages
of information provided. For the amount of service that they
provide to their users, that is a really modest payment. And
that is just what is frightening a lot of companies who probably
never previously thought of it this way, but whose whole business
is predicated on the difficulty for the public of getting
information.

One company that sees the position of power that Google has right
now is Microsoft. They are the biggest software company now, and
they do have their own search engine at
. They at telling the world that
they are going to overtake Google with more and better features.
But currently we are hearing a lot about interesting new ideas
from Google. They seem to be pushing the envelope every week.
Microsoft is not ready to make its move. By the time they are,
they may not be able to catch up. It sounds a lot like IBM, once
the giant in computing, who just knew that they could take over
the personal computing market whenever they wanted. It turned
out to be not so easy for IBM once other companies had become
entrenched. Microsoft is going to have to prove that they have
what it takes to grab the market away from Google. But the
winner is going to be providing a lot of useful information to
people that someone else is getting rich providing right now.
That is going to be a sizable dislocation.

There are, of course, downsides for the consumer. Some businesses
we currently like are going to go out of business. I find that a
lot of used books that were available cheaply over the Internet a
few years ago are really not available any more. Enough other
people were looking for them that the cheap copies have all been
bought up. Other people who wanted the same books were able to
find then due to services like Google's.

Just as sellers are going to be more competitive with each other,
buyers will be also. This is particularly true with scarce
goods. People who sell their labor, as anybody who works does,
may find that they are also in competition. Many American workers
do not need to be reminded that they are in competition with
inexpensive labor in places like South Asia. Steve Lohr (in the
article cited below) points out that many stores keep goods that
they sell for low profit in order to get people into the store.
When people are not coming into the store to buy goods, these
products may become unavailable.

The heightened competition on the Internet and the easy
availability of price information will cause price wars that
will drive some sellers out of business. That may lead in some
areas to less rather than more competition. There is no doubt
that the information services that Google in specific and the
Internet in general can bring about may well shake things up a
great deal in a lot of different industries. Google seems to be
the real power-player of the Internet. It will be interesting to see what
new ideas they will have. [-mrl]

[This article was inspired by and drew upon, "Just Googling: It Is
Striking Fear Into Companies" by Steve Lohr, New York Times,
November 6, 2005]

Responding to Mark's review of HARRY POTTER AND THE GOBLET OF
FIRE: You say: "Another piece of poor writing, by no means unique
to this series, is that Harry's worst foes capture Harry and then
tell him everything he needs to know assuming that he cannot
possibly escape them. Of course he does escape. The talkative
villain is a time-honored tradition in James Bond films, but it
seems more and more ridiculous the more it is used in film." In
other words: "Do you expect me to talk?" "No, Master Potter, I
expect you to die! [-jtm]

Responding to Mark's review of GRIZZLY MAN: I read Nick Jans's
book and concluded that Treadwell was a jackass who got what he
wanted in the end (really; he once said he be happy to be eaten
by a bear and he was) but killed a woman in the process. Jans
also talked to scientists who had to endure his presentations and
concluded that he was so scatterbrained that he couldn't have
made a scientifically sound presentation, that he was actually
endangering the bears, and not doing himself much good either.
Also the rangers who had to recover what was left of the bodies,
one way and another (the bear with, er, the fullest tum took over
a dozen bullets and slugs at point-blank range to bring down).
[-jtm]

Mark answers: I will disagree with you on one point. I think
that Treadwell undeniably did himself a great deal of good with
his obsession with the bears. He was a disturbed individual and
an alcoholic. The bears gave his life meaning and at the same
time gave him a surprising degree of fame and made him many
friends. He had (attractive) women anxious to even risk their
life to accompany him. He was admired by many people. After his
death he looked like a fool, but he was not around to be
embarrassed. Without his bears he would have lived his life as a
loser. He very probably would have died younger. Everything
else you say is probably true, and it is no defense. But by any
objective measure he benefited greatly from his delusion right up
five minutes before his death. [-mrl]

Responding to Evelyn's comments on BRAVE NEW WORLD: I read the
book forty years ago--when I was too young to understand what
"orgy-porgy" was getting at. In a sense, both Orwell and Huxley
are writing "economy of abundance" stories. Other such stories
are Vonnegut's PLAYER PIANO, Pohl's "The Midas Plague" and "The
Man Who Ate the World", Farmer's "Riders of the Purple Wage" /
THE PURPLE BOOK, and anything on nanotechnology. Orwell, Huxley,
Pohl, and Vonnegut all thought that automation would create the
economy of abundance. (Before you point out that Winston Smith's
world is hellishly, bolshevikly poor, the abundance is in war
goods; Orwell specifically states that the never-ending war is
sucking up the surplus production.) Farmer (and his source,
Robert Theobald) said that computerization would create the
economy of abundance. Now of course you have nanotechnology,
which as written is indistinguishable from magic. Huxley had
expensive games and the like. Hey, he is being modern! (I saw
gaming computers with fancy boxes going for $5K and this was at a
computer show where everything was discounted.) [-jtm]

In the 10/28/05 issue of the MT VOID, Evelyn wrote that in the
"Information, Please" chapter of GALLIMAUFREY TO GO, J. Bryan,
III asks: "When was the last time there was no airplane in the
skies anywhere?" He said up front that he doesn't know the
answer, and no one responded to the VOID. However, on Usenet,
Bill Higgins replied, "It might be possible to answer with some
confidence 'when was the last time there was no scheduled airline
flight in the skies anywhere?' by diligent research. (Sometime
in the 1930s, I suppose.) But I don't know how one would nail
down the answer to Bryan's question. There were long stretches
before World War I when no airplane was aloft anywhere, and
perhaps some short stretches after WWI. 'When was the last time
there was nobody in Earth orbit?' would be much easier to answer.
Jim Oberg could do it." [-bh]

And Keith F. Lynch responded to this with:

"So can I: Thursday, November 2, 2000. I wonder if this number
will ever change.

It's an interesting kind of question. Sort of the flip side of a
usual list of firsts. When was the last time:

No human-lit fire was burning.

No wheel was rolling.

No printing press was being operated.

No European was in the New World.

No Englishman was in North America. (Probably 1607.)

Nobody was in Antarctica. (Probably 1947.)

Nobody was in a submerged submarine.

No train was in motion.

No bicycle was being ridden.

No car was in motion.

No telegraph key was tapping.

No telephone call was in progress.

No phonograph was playing.

No electric light was lit.

No movie was being watched.

No radio signals were being transmitted, received, and understood.

No television was being watched.

No nuclear weapons were in existence.

No computer was booted up.

There was no traffic on the net. (Probably Monday October 27,
1980.) (I think there may have been once or twice in the '70s, very
late at night, when I was the only person using the net.)

Or, on a lighter note, the last time:

No Beethoven symphony was being played.

There were no cars in motion on the DC Beltway.

The eternal flame at JFK's gravesite wasn't lit.

Nobody was having sex on an airplane in flight.

Probably such questions are seldom asked because most of them are
difficult or impossible to answer." [-kfl]

CAPSULE: In Wyoming in 1963, where gay men were less than
popular, two young sheepherders begin a love affair that
continues for several years. Though each goes back to live a
normal life keeping their relationship a secret, but each remains
the greatest love in the other's life. That love touches every
part of those lives. Ang Lee directs this adaptation of Annie
Proulx's short story with a script co-authored by Larry McMurtry.
The pacing is unhurried, the characters are well realized, and
the outdoor photography is frequently spectacular. This film is
flawed, but it is serious human drama. Rating: +2 (-4 to +4) or
7/10

BROKEBACK MOUNTAIN might be called a gay Western. It has
polished by the fine direction of Ang Lee. Larry McMurtry, who
won the Pulitzer Prize for his novel LONESOME DOVE, joins fellow
novelist and former collaborator Diana Ossana in adapting Annie
Proulx's 1997 short story.

Two young men are herding sheep on the title mountain and in the
boredom and loneliness they start a physical relationship. Heath
Ledger plays Ennis Del Mar, a ranch cowboy who has lost his
parents and struggles to make ends meet. He takes a job
illegally herding sheep in protected area. There he meets Jack
Twist (played by Jake Gyllenhaal), a rodeo rider about the same
age. Under the boredom of the long hours of tending and herding
sheep the two at first bond and then give in to a physical
attraction they feel for each other. From the start they
discover that the empty mountain was not so private as they
expected.

Jack and Ennis go back to normal lives dating and marrying women,
but they cannot ignore the attraction that they still feel for
each other. Their brief encounter becomes more of a lifelong
secret passion, competing with their relationships with their
families. Neither is particularly good at keeping secrets.
Ennis is a diffident and inarticulate man whose marriage has
money problems and more children than he and his wife Alma
(Michelle Williams) can manage. When Alma discovers Ennis's
secret it makes the marriage unbearable. Jack is more outgoing
and a little better at keeping secrets, but he also has a
stronger passion for men that he cannot control.

The pacing of the story is deliberate as McMurtry's writing often
is. He frequently creates characters who are slow, inarticulate
talkers. The long silences tend to make this a longer film. The
portrait of people from Wyoming and Texas is textured and well
developed. There are some problems with the script. At least
once in a conversation we see somebody's mental image, but it is
not clear whose (and it is important to know). It is difficult
to tell how much time has passed between episodes. The
characters looks may change very little between episode and one
can be surprised to see that two years have passed since the
previous scene. Ledger in particular speaks indistinctly and
sometimes unintelligibly--an important contrast to the self-
assured Jack, but his words are lost. The key question of which
of the lovers seduces the other is ambiguous, but it is shot in
the dark making it harder to see what is happening.

The photography is dramatic, particularly in the early scenes on
the mountain. Images of the stormy high country of Wyoming are
simply majestic. Occasionally Rodrigo Prieto's cinematography
goes a little overboard as it does in one scene with a fight
occurring with fireworks in the background sky. There are not
too many gay Westerns, and this is really as much just a drama
set in the modern West. It is a finely drawn picture of two
lovers and the attitudes of a society that cannot accept them.
It is a strong piece of acting. I rate BROKEBACK MOUNTAIN a +2
on the -4 to +4 scale or 7/10. [-mrl]

CAPSULE: This role is a change of pace for the versatile Anthony
Hopkins. He plays a New Zealander grease monkey who soups up an
obsolete motorcycle to make it a contender for land speed
records. Roger Donaldson writes and directs. This is a simple
likable film that goes from being a character study to a road
picture to a sports film. Rating: low +2 (-4 to +4) or 7/10

"If you don't follow through on your dreams you might as well be
a vegetable." That is the philosophy of H. J. "Burt" Munro, a
New Zealander grease monkey who has consecrated his life to the
god of speed. His parts shelf in the shed where he lives is
labeled as offerings to this deity.

There is some sort of magic that comes from down under.
Australia and New Zealand can take a simple idea that would be
laughed at in the United States, and they can make a movie that
just about everybody likes. STRICTLY BALLROOM had the same sort
of magic. THE WORLD'S FASTEST INDIAN is a likable film about an
amiable man that is based on a true story about an apparently
over the hill motorcycle racer with an apparently over the hill
motorcycle who sacrifices everything he has for his dream to make
the bike into a formidable racer. This is an innocent film with
two kinds of people, those who are supportive for Burt and those
who are rude or officious and bureaucratic, but will be
supportive once they understand Burt. Burt will face every sort
of mishap in reaching his dream but with will face them all with
heart. By every rule this should be a cloyingly sweet film, but
the god of speed is watching over it and keeps it endearing.
This film reaches for the same heartstrings that Steven Spielberg
is accused of plucking, but Spielberg could never get away with
it and Roger Donaldson does.

The year is 1962 (though through most of the film from the music
we can just pick up from context that it must be the 1960s).
Burt (played by the incomparable Anthony Hopkins) has spent his
life souping up a 1920 Indian Scout motorcycle to get more and
more speed out of it. There is little left of the original
machine and Burt can always find some way to modify it and coax
just a little more speed from it. Burt's dream is to take his
42-year-old motorcycle to the Bonneville Salt Flats in Utah to
break the world land speed record against younger and more
technically advanced bikes ridden by younger and more technically
advanced riders.

The film is in three sharply divided acts. The first introduces
the audience to the strange man who is Burt Munro. He is the
kind of a man who would decide the best way to mow his lawn is to
pour gasoline on it and burn it down. The second act is about
Burt's odyssey in traveling to America and to the Bonneville Salt
Flats. This act is essentially a road picture complete with
characters stranger than even Burt. He meets the likes of a
friendly transvestite and amiable Native Americans. These
include the film's other two familiar faces, Paul Rodriguez and
Diane Ladd. Burt makes friends at a rate that must be like one
every three minutes of film running time, proving he is speedy in
more ways than one. Most of these friendships leave loose ends
as Burt moves on promising to return, but Burt is dedicated to
his goal to get to the Salt Flats. Once he arrives the third act
begins. This is a familiar sports film plot of the underdog whom
everybody laughs at teaching lessons in spirit. All this is
familiar stuff, but the film has a sort of agreeable style.

Donaldson had made a short for New Zealand television about Burt
Munro back in 1971. In the interim he directed several major
films including THE BOUNTY, COCKTAIL, SPECIES, DANTE'S PEAK,
THIRTEEN DAYS, and THE RECRUIT. Here in a New Zealand/United
States co-production, Donaldson returns to Kiwi hero Burt Murno.
Many of the props used in the film come from the real Munro's
home, now a sort of shrine in New Zealand.

By rights this film should not work, but Anthony Hopkins and Kiwi
charm pull it off. Not the best film of the year, but worth
seeing. I rate it a low +2 on the -4 to +4 scale or 7/10. [-mrl]

CAPSULE: It is Johnny Cash's turn to have his biography put on
film. Unfortunately, he had a by-the-numbers sort of life with
little cause but his music and himself. Joaquin Phoenix and
especially Reese Witherspoon do their own singing and prove
themselves very talented, but Cash's life simply did not supply
them with any sort of unique or even engaging material. James
Mangold directs and co-writes the film. Rating: 0 (-4 to +4) or
4/10

In my physics class they showed us a film of a ball shot straight
up. It started with a lot of momentum, but lost it as it rose.
For an instant it was at its peak. Then it started falling.
When it returned it was headed down at just the same speed it had
been headed up. The film was very real, but it just was not very
interesting, because what we saw we had seen so often before.
That is what is wrong with the film biography WALK THE LINE.

The story of Johnny Cash must be at least as old as Hollywood.
It is the story of a promising and talented man who makes it and
then gives in to decadence. He ruins his career and his personal
relationships. WALK THE LINE is the story of Cash's career. You
know the story even if you don't know the story. You may have
seen it in THE JOLSON STORY or you may have seen it in SID AND
NANCY. For that matter maybe it was SCARFACE. A young person
from a painful background wants to prove himself in something he
is really dedicated to. It turns out he has a natural talent.
He starts doing well and discovers he really has something to
offer. Suddenly--more suddenly than even he suspected--he is
getting attention and becoming very successful. He feels good
about himself and he starts celebrating with some sort of vice.
Soon the good times are more important to him than the
profession. He wastes his talent on sex and/or drugs or he loses
the balance of his personal life versus his work. He neglects
those who care about him. If the story continues he either goes
out in a ball of flame or, if he is lucky, he is redeemed by the
love of a good woman. Frequently, the person will have some
noble cause beyond his art. It is something like wanting to
entertain the combat troops or fighting prejudice or working for
artists' legal rights. Cash's cause was that prison inmates need
entertainment like the rest of us. The story of his life may be
real, but it is still all so familiar.

WALK THE LINE is based on Johnny Cash's autobiography. Rumor has
it that it is very close to the true story of the man's life.
But it is about one more show biz personality bent on self-
destruction saved from destruction by love and patience. The
good woman here is country singer and longtime Cash partner June
Carter played by Reese Witherspoon. Along the way Cash travels,
hobnobs, and gets drunk with his good buddies Elvis, Waylon, and
Jerry Lee. (Yes, that Elvis, Waylon, and Jerry Lee.)

It is becoming popular to have the actors in musical biographies
to do their own singing. Phoenix and especially Witherspoon
demonstrate that had things been different they could have been
good country music singers. Their singing and most of the
technical credits of this film are very good. Phoenix's harelip
is a bit of a problem, since Cash did not have one.
Unfortunately the camera has to show a singer's mouth which keeps
reminding us that this is not Cash. Otherwise Phoenix frequently
looks the role. As an odd touch, Cash's mean cotton-farmer
father is played by Robert Patrick who is best known as the
T-1000 in TERMINATOR 2.

Gill Dennis's and Mangold's script should show us a little more
of the creative process. Here also the film shows us something a
little less than credible. It seems here to be that Cash sat
with friends and strummed and drank. Maybe Carter would get
disgusted tells him he doesn't have the courage to "walk the
line." Next scene Cash has a great song called "Walk the Line."

Cash's music is fine. We all know that. But the viewer may be
disappointed to discover that most of his image was a sham. His
life is less about prison and mud/blood/beer fights and more
about trashing his dressing room when he gets angry and fooling
around. He lived more like a rock star than like a simple good
ol' boy. This is a recommended film if you have a special thing
for Johnny Cash or have never seen a film biography before.
Otherwise it is just well-worn material. I rate WALK THE LINE a
0 on the -4 to +4 scale or 4/10. [-mrl]

In last week's review of INTRODUCING MIND & BRAIN, the author's
names should have been Angus *Gellatly* and Oscar Zarate.

THEODORE REX by Edmund Morris (ISBN 0-812-96660-7) covers just
the seven-plus years of Theodore Roosevelt's Presidency, though
there are references to his life before then. While Morris
obviously finds Roosevelt fascinating, he does not idolize him,
and Roosevelt's faults are covered as well as his virtues. (And
his faults are often the faults of his time--his attitudes toward
race, while in some ways more enlightened than his age, in many
ways are just as backward as those of other people of his time.
Unless you're a history student, though, I suspect that this is
more a book to be partially skimmed than read in great detail--
there can be such a thing as information overkill.

And as proof that there is nothing new under the sun, I offer
this quote: "The consistent features of the political landscape,
as he saw it, were fault lines running deeply and dangerously
through divergent blocks of power. Political chasms lurked
between Isolationism and Expansionism, Government and the Trusts,
Labor and Capital, conservation and development, Nativism and the
Golden Door. And since the last election, the fault lines had
widened. As William Jennings Bryan kept saying, 'The extremes of
society are being driven further and further apart.'" (page 37)

CELEBRATED CASES OF JUDGE DEE translated by Robert Van Gulik
(ISBN 0-486-23337-5) is the only Judge Dee book available in
English that is an original Chinese Judge Dee novel. (All the
rest of the Van Gulik books were pastiches written by Van Gulik
himself.) Even more interesting than the novel (really three
interleaved short stories) is the twenty-three-page preface in
which Van Gulik talks about the Chinese detective story, a genre
that goes back at least a thousand years. In particular, he
describes some characteristics of the Chinese detective story
that differ from its Western counterpart. For example, the
criminal is usually introduced at the beginning, rather than
remaining a secret until the end. (So "Columbo" is very Chinese
in that way!) The books also tend to be much longer than Western
detective novels, with a lot of background and digressions, and
often after a hundred characters (making it more like a modern
fantasy novel, I guess). They also have the supernatural as a
matter of course and more detail about the punishment. There are
many other differences based on the underlying differences
between the Chinese and the Western legal systems, and I
definitely recommend that you read the preface before reading the
novel.

PERFECT REASONABLE DEVIATIONS FROM THE BEATEN PATH: THE LETTERS
OF RICHARD P. FEYNMAN (ISBN 0-7382-0636-9) is of minor interest,
unless you are doing a lot of research on Feynman. Concentrate
instead on his books SURELY YOU'RE JOKING, MR. FEYMAN and WHAT DO
YOU CARE WHAT OTHER PEOPLE THINK?

THE GRIZZLY MAZE: TIMOTHY TREADWELL'S FATAL OBSESSION WITH
ALASKAN BEARS by Nick Jans (ISBN 0-525-94886-4) (and the related
film GRIZZLY MAN, reviewed by Mark in the 12/02/05 issue) both
focus on what motivated Treadwell to live with bears for several
years before eventually being killed by one. Watching the footage
of him, the term that came to mind was "eco-flake": well-meaning
but completely misinformed and ultimately more damaging to his
"cause" than helpful. The book points out that Treadwell did
manage one amazing feat: in the eighty years of record-keeping, he
was the first person in the Alaska wildlife preserves to be killed
by a bear. (Treadwell himself seemed to swing between claiming
that the bears would never harm him and that the bears might kill
him at any moment if he showed weakness.) Treadwell also claimed
he was protecting the bears from poachers, though there is no
evidence that there was any substantial poaching going on in the
preserves, and Treadwell's "evidence" was either questionable or
fabricated. (E.g., he shows a party of men photographing a bear
and claims they are poachers, though they don't shoot the bear
that is only twenty feet away.) It is an engrossing study of a
delusional person. [-ecl]

Mark Leeper
mleeper@optonline.net
Quote of the Week:
None can love freedom heartily but good men;
the rest love not freedom, but license.
-- John Milton